Putin’s Chechen crony has claimed that Elon Musk turned off his Cybertruck after sending it to the front lines in Ukraine with a machine gun strapped to its back.
Ramzan Kadyrov, 47, was filmed driving the vehicle, which he says was gifted to him by the billionaire businessman, around what appears to be the presidential palace in the Chechen capital Grozny.
The footage, purportedly filmed on August 17, shows him standing behind a machine gun with a bandolier of bullets around his shoulders.
But two days later, Musk denied giving the Cybertruck to Kadyrov.
Now the warlord has accused the Tesla and SpaceX CEO of remotely shutting down the £145,000 vehicle after sending it off to war.
Kadyrov has bullets around his neck as he poses with the machine gun atop his Tesla on August 17.
The 47-year-old warlord hopped in the Tesla Cybertruck for a spin around his “palace-style” mansion
Kadyrov said on Russian social media platform Vkontakte: ‘Elon Musk acted badly.
‘He gives expensive gifts from the heart and then rejects them from a distance.
You probably remember his gift: the Cybertruck, which we equipped with a machine gun and sent to the SVO (‘special military operation’ zone, which is what Russia calls its war in Ukraine).
‘The machine coped perfectly with combat missions.
‘It demonstrated maneuverability and good protection for the crew.
‘So, recently Musk remotely shut down the Cybertruck.
“This is not a man’s task. We had to tow the iron horse.
—How is that possible, Elon? Is this how it’s done?
The image shows Kadyrov on top of his new Cybertruck, which he says has stopped working.
Kadyrov at the wheel of the futuristic vehicle in Chechnya, Russia, in August 2016.
The warlord has accused the Tesla and SpaceX CEO of remotely shutting down the £145,000 vehicle after sending it to war.
Meanwhile, in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, Putin launched a guided bomb that hit a residential house, killing a 78-year-old woman.
Harrowing footage shows traumatised residents being evacuated from a house in Sumy, Ukraine, after Vladimir Putin’s forces destroyed the building in a brutal attack.
Some 221 people lived in the retirement home before it was destroyed when the missile hit the fifth floor of the complex.
“There are injured people, some of them in serious condition and have been hospitalized,” said Volodymyr Artyukh, head of the Sumy regional administration, announcing the evacuation.
Mykola, a patient living on the fourth floor of the Sumy nursing home, said: “I was in the room, there was an explosion, the windows were broken.”
Another resident, Vitaly Anokhin, who lived in the home for six years, said: “Everything was fine until the damn Russians came.”
Elon Musk arrives at an event in Los Angeles on April 13
Over the past six weeks, Russia has sent troops to stop the incursion into its territory and has also stepped up its offensive in eastern Ukraine (pictured: Zelensky)
Another of the injured, Viktor, said: “Glass flew out. I was covered in glass. The rescuers came and helped me down.”
Footage shows residents in wheelchairs being wheeled out of the damaged building by firefighters and other emergency workers.
The Sumy region, located on Ukraine’s northeastern border with Russia, has come under increasing attacks from Russia since Ukraine invaded part of the neighbouring Kursk region in early August.
Over the past six weeks, Russia has sent troops to stop the incursion into its territory and has also stepped up its offensive in eastern Ukraine.
Amid the growing threat, Ukrainian authorities announced in August that they planned to evacuate a total of 45,000 residents from the worst-affected areas of the region.
Overnight, Ukraine’s air force said it destroyed 61 of 70 Russian attack drones and one of four missiles launched by Russia at its territory, including at the capital, kyiv.
“The air defense system operated in the Dnipropetrovsk, kyiv, Vinnytsia, Cherkasy, Kirovohrad, Sumy, Poltava, Ivano-Frankivsk, Lviv, Khmelnytsky, Mykolaiv, Odesa and Kherson regions,” he said on Telegram.
